


Sinister Shampoo

by uglydisgrace (beautifuldisgrace)



Series: Slandering Hermann [2]
Category: Purple Hyacinth - Ephemerys & Sophism (Webcomic)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Crack, Crack Relationships, Crack Treated Seriously, Drama, I'm Sorry, Love Triangles, M/M, Plot Twists, This Is Not Going To Go The Way You Think
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-31
Updated: 2020-07-31
Packaged: 2021-03-05 22:01:44
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,625
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25622581
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/beautifuldisgrace/pseuds/uglydisgrace
Summary: Words can't describe how weird this fic is.
Relationships: Hermann/Oliver March, Lauren Sinclair/Kieran White, Oliver March/Tristan Sinclair, William Hawkes/Kym Ladell
Series: Slandering Hermann [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1858165
Comments: 13
Kudos: 29





	Sinister Shampoo

**Author's Note:**

> dedicated to the ph discord server- thanks for encouraging me to write this. <3

Hermann knew he shouldn’t have trusted the shady man in the alley.

He’d been a fool. He’d been the blindest of all.

A few days ago, he’d visited the local farmer’s market to search for cranberries. Much like the eccentric Sergeant Ladell, he had an unhealthy obsession with a specific fruit, though he was careful to keep his a secret. 

“Ten for the berries, another five for you to not tell your boss,” he told the cranberry merchant, sliding a few banknotes forward. This particular stall was run by a missus Frances Culpeper, who despised him. That didn’t stop him from coming back though--she owned the finest cranberry bog in the entire country and her berries were always fresh. 

Once he’d finished the transaction, he furtively made his way into a shady alley where he could eat his berries without being seen. Hermann unhinged his jaw like a python and dumped an entire crate of cranberries in his mouth, chewing like a champion glizzy gulper. He moaned.

“Sjkajfklsjflaksfj I love cranberries,” he said to no one in particular. 

“Hello, good sir.”

Hermann shat his pants. 

“W-who’s there?” He whipped his head back and forth, eyes widening like a deer caught in headlights. “I’m with the APD, and if you attack me, you’ll have to deal with them!”

“I mean you no harm,” the voice said. A figure clad in all black stepped forward as if it were melting away from the shadows. A dark mask covered the lower half of its face, but there was something familiar about the wide brown eyes. “I’m a merchant, you see, and I was wondering if you were interested in my product.”

“What product?”

“I sell shampoo--the most luxurious shampoo you’ll ever use. And you, good sir, are most definitely in need of it by the look of that hair.”

Feeling on edge and bloated from the cranberries, Hermann simply said, “If I buy this shampoo of yours, will you leave me be?”

“Certainly,” the merchant replied. “It’ll be twenty pence.”

Grumbling, he passed over the money. He was about to lunge for the merchant and demand to know who it was, but he found himself alone in the alley once more.

“What the fuck, what the fuck,” he whispered to himself, gathering the remains of his cranberries and his dignity. He hobbled home, trying to make himself seem as small as possible to avoid being seen.

Oh, how he could imagine the office gossip if someone from the precinct spotted him right now. 

“Look, it’s Hermann,” they’d whisper in the break room. “I heard he’s addicted to cranberries and shat himself at the market the other day.” 

A terrible thought pierced his mind. What if word got out, and they demoted him for humiliating the department? It seemed that karma was knocking at his door, taunting him for all the times he’d ridiculed Lauren Sinclair in the past. And what would Tristan say? Would he cackle at his rival, or would he put on a sympathetic mask and pat his shoulder reassuringly?

Shaking his head, he steeled himself. He was Hughes Hermann, captain of the eleventh precinct, pride of the Ardhalis police department.

He then promptly slipped on ice and fell on his ass, dropping all his groceries.

“Sir! Are you alright?” a concerned passerby asked. He looked up and saw…none other than Lauren Sinclair.

Being a brave and mature individual, Hermann scrambled to his feet, grabbed his bags, and sprinted the fuck away.

\---

He’d thought his day couldn’t get any worse. Of course, he was sorely mistaken. In his haste, he’d left behind all his precious cranberries. His bag was empty but for the bottle of shampoo.

Sinking to the carpeted floor of the hallway in defeat, Hermann contemplated his life. His pants were full of shit. His cranberries were gone. His reputation was on the verge of shattering into a million tiny pieces like a delicate glass sculpture. 

What a mess. 

Lifting himself from the ground, he caught a glimpse of a shadowy _something_ in a low-hanging mirror. He fought back a shriek, realizing that it was his own reflection. He looked like he’d been through hell and back. Cranberry juice dripped unattractively down his chin in spittle-laced rivulets. His hair was, in fact, an absolute rat’s nest. So the merchant hadn’t been lying.

As suddenly as if a lightbulb had flickered to life in front of his eyes, he had an idea. Chuckling to himself, he threw an admiring look at the bottle of shampoo in his hands.

\---

“Is that Hermann?”

“No way… he looks so _different_.”

“Hot, you mean.”

“Shut up.”

“Admit it, you’ve always had a thing for older men.”

The two interns were crouched by the window, watching the precinct’s captain walk toward the office building. There was something new about the way he carried himself--a certain gracefulness in his step that hadn’t been there before.

Hermann was absolutely delighted. The shampoo had worked like a charm, adding a needed shine to his dark hair that, for once, wasn’t the result of grease and sweat. He’d gotten many an awestruck look from passerby, and people he walked by would actually stop in their tracks to inhale the floral scent he left behind.

He’d been in his office, sifting through the Lune files yet again, when he heard a knock at the door.

“Captain Hermann!”

He looked up. “Hello, Detective Cooper.” Hermann couldn’t say that the two of them were close, but they had a mutual respect for one another. “How do you do?”

“Fine, fine.” The detective waved his hand dismissively. “Say, is that a new shampoo? It’s been the talk of the office all morning.”

“Yes, it is.” He smiled slightly. “Why do you ask?”

“Well,” Cooper started awkwardly, “we were kind of hoping that we could touch your hair. It just looks so _soft_.”

“Who’s _we_?”

Cooper pushed the door open wider, its hinges creaking, to reveal a hallway lined to the brim with people. His eyes widened. It must have been the entire office. Warm flush crawled up his neck as he noticed that his crush, Oliver March, was among them.

“Come in, then,” he beckoned to the crowd. “I don’t bite.”

“I wish you’d bite me, daddy,” March whispered just loud enough for him to hear, practically frothing at the mouth, his eyes bright with desire.

Before he could fully register what March had said, the mob moved in on him, patting and touching his hair.

“Wow, it smells so good! Like flowers!” one officer declared.

“It’s scented like geraniums and petunias,” he responded proudly, puffing out his chest.

Someone snorted. He pinpointed the source to one of the new recruits, an archivist named Kieran White.

“Something funny, White?” He arched an eyebrow.

“No, not at all, sir. If you’ll excuse me, I’m going to the archives to go make out with Lauren- I mean file reports! Hahahah.”

\---

It started with a peculiar tingling. The top of her head was itchy. So very itchy.

“MY HAIR IS SO ITCHY!” Kym Ladell yelled.

“Just shave your head, then,” William Hawkes replied boredly. She grabbed the collar of his shirt and shook him back and forth.

“How could you say such a thing? I thought we were friends!”

“It’s not just you, Kym,” Lauren said. “Tatiana is also itchy.”

“Who the hell is Tatiana?” Kieran strode into the office, slinging an arm around Lauren’s shoulder. She kicked him in the shin.

“My hair,” she said.

“Well, Fernando is far superior.”

Lauren rolled her eyes. “No, he’s not. Fernando could never compete with Tatiana.”

“Are you kidding me, _mon amour_? He’d-”

Their argument was rudely interrupted by a squadron of officers in bright yellow hazmat suits (like the ones in Monsters Inc.) bursting into the room.

“Halt!” the officer in the front said, her voice muffled by the thicc fabric. “We have received news that there is a lice outbreak in the office! We have been ordered to shave bald anyone suspected of carrying the pests!”

“By whose orders?” Lauren asked.

“By your uncle, in fact.”

\---

“TRISTAN!”

Hermann was furious. Furiously bald. The top of his head glistened like the Chicago Bean.

“Oh, hello, Hughes.” The man’s smile was saccharine, insincere. 

“Why did you do this? Hell, how did you know there was a lice outbreak?” he demanded.

“Funny story, really. Remember this?” Tristan removed a black mask from his pocket and pressed it over the bridge of his nose. Hermann gasped.

“You were the merchant in the alley-”

“Why, of course! I wanted to make sure the shampoo got to you, and only you.”

“You gave me the shampoo? It wasn’t really shampoo, was it? Tell me, what poisons did you put in it?”

The police chief laughed.

“Dear captain, you overestimate me. No, no, it was shampoo all right. It just had a secret ingredient in it.” He held a glass vial up to the light, watching as a few translucent clumps rolled around inside. He grinned wickedly. “Lice eggs.”

“Wha-”

“You see, dear captain, I’ve noticed you getting awfully chummy with Oliver these last couple of weeks. I needed to make sure that Ollie was mine, and mine only.”

Hermann pressed his temples. “You’re delusional! Oliver loves _me_!”

“What about me?” Detective Oliver March stepped into the room, his wool cap in his hands.

“Ollie, you must choose! Who do you love? Me,” Tristan threw a disgusted look at Hermann, “or _him_?”

March looked down at his feet. He sighed. “Well, this is awfully awkward. The truth is, I’ve been married for some time now.”

"WHAT?! TO WHO??!!?" they said together.

March sighed, with the air of a man in love. "To Tim Sake."

**Author's Note:**

> hahahahaha bet you didn't expect that, did you?
> 
> i hate this fic. but i love it too.
> 
> flower meanings:  
> geraniums- foolishness, stupidity  
> petunias- hatred


End file.
